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tv   Democracy Now  LINKTV  July 1, 2013 3:00pm-4:01pm PDT

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06.27.13 06.27.13 >> from pacifica, this is democracy now! we are here tonight not to give our opinion. we are here as revolutionaries. he has to go. we are completing the revolution to tell dr. morsi to leave. the people of the alexander are calling on him to leave. >> millions fill the streets of egypt calling for the resignation of mohamed morsi in
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the largest protest since the revolution that ousted hosni mubarak. obama arrives in tanzania on the last leg of his african tour, we look at u.s. secret operations in north africa. condemns ind states the strongest terms this attack. we're working with the government of libya to secure our diplomats. i have also instructed my aunt -- administration from increasing security at various posts. we will bring justice to killers to attack our people. >> a new book on last year's .ttack on benghazi we will speak with the book
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webb andhors, brandon jack murphy. last week, and they publish the contents of ambassador stevens' diary before the attack. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. rallied asking for the resignation of mohamed morsi. dead and hundreds injured in the protests. among those who were killed was a 21-year-old college student from chevy chase, and to prompter. the egyptian government says up to 17 million people turned out
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nationwide. .- andrew pochter we will have more from egypt with sharif abdel kouddous after the headlines. the latest revelations from edward snowden are threatening a major rift between the u.s. and european union. citing documents released by snowden, a german magazine reports the national security agency spied on european union offices in brussels, washington, and the united nations. the nsa allegedly planted bugs on to conversations and also to look at the e-mail activity. says that countries such as japan, mexico, south korea, india, and turkey were
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included. the revelation comes just before the u.s. and e.u. are trying to negotiate a trans-atlantic trade deal. >> i feel, as a representative of the european institution, like a federal enemy. is this the basis for a constructive relationship based on mutual trust? i would say no. my request to the embassy to you as you're in brussels is, is it true, and if it is, why? it is shocking that the united states could take measures ,gainst their closest allies compare both to measures taken in the past by the secret service of the soviet union.
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alsolatest documents point to a major spy operation targeting european citizens. according to the story, 500 million uniqueonversations are monitored in europe every month. some have called for a suspension of trade talks as well as sharing information on the bank accounts and flight passengers. edward snowden likely had access to the list because of his job with booz allen hamilton. edward snowden is believed to be in a transit area of a moscow airport one week after leaving hong kong. the ecuadorian president said that joe biden called him to urge for a rejection of his asylum bid. >> what a difference between
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vice-president biden and those congressmember's. it was a friendly and cordial conversation. of course we discussed the topic of snowden, for which you requested a courteous request that we reject asylum. i told them what the ecuadorian position is. we very much appreciate the united states. we have not gone in search of the situation, we are not u.s., which is what some members of the media have said. not anti-u.s., which is what some members of the media have said. >> in a public message to snowden, correa purge the whistleblower to keep your spirits high. news, julianbc
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assange criticized the u.s. for revoking snowden's passport but said no amount of government pressure could stop the publication of his weeks. theothing is stopping publishing at this case. great care has been taken to make sure that mr. snowden cannot be pressured by any state to stop the publication process. the united states by cancelling his passport have left him, for the moment, more room but in russia. is that really a great outcome by the state department? is that what it wanted to do? every citizen has the right to their citizenship. to take someone's principal right of citizenship, their passports, is a disgrace. nowhe pentagon has confirmed it is blocking access
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to the guardian website at u.s. military facilities around the world. the ban only includes articles related to the leaks. same-sex marriage has been allowed to resume in california. couples to exchange vows across the state for the first marriages in five years. they included paul katami and jeff zarrillo, who were involved in the trial of proposition 8. at their marriage, they hailed the victory to the path to equality. >> people ask us all the time, did you have any second
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thoughts, and did you want to do this when you have the opportunity? how could you not? this is an opportunity to right a wrong. when we leave this earth, people will say that we did not stand for being treated as second- class citizens. i hope we did a little bit to change the path towards equality. >> opponents of same-sex marriage asked the court to halt the resumption of marriages but the request was denied. the resumption of same-sex marriage came just in time for gay pride celebrations this weekend across the country. last week also saw the supreme reject doma. 19 firefighters have died in
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arizona while battling a wildfire in near-record heat. the victims were trying to contain a fast-moving fire. the national interagency fire center says it is the third deadliest wildfire incident in history for the united states, the deadliest in arizona's history. that 19we know is firefighters were killed in what is probably the worst disaster that has taken place here in the state of arizona. we grieve for the families, department, for the city. the families are in terrible shock. fire departments are like families. so the entire department, the entire area, state, is being devastated by the magnitude of this. >> this comes as they grapple
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with triple digit temperatures. one person died in las vegas over the weekend as the temperature reached 118 degrees. at least three migrants were mexico and arizona.der between they were dead, likely from the heat. be in mandela is said to critical but stable condition. on sunday, president obama unveiled a new initiative to invest in african energy called power africa. >> we will invest $7 billion into companies and resources. in partnership with african nations, we would develop new sources of energy, reach more households in villages and farms, not just cities, we will expand access for those who currently live off the power
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grid, and we will support clean energy to protect the planet and combat climate change. [applause] a light where currently there is darkness. >> president obama spoke after seeing the prison which held nelson mandela for 18 years. on sunday, riot police fired rubber bullets to disperse a crowd protesting obama's visit in the town. obama now heads to tanzania, the last top of his three-nation african tour. secretary of state john kerry has finished a trip to the occupied territories without advancement of peace talks. as he left israel, he claimed he had made progress in bridging gaps between the two sides.
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>> i am pleased to tell you we have made real progress on this trip, and i believe, with a little more work the start of the final status of negotiations can be within reach. we started out with very wide gaps and we have narrowed those considerably. >> israel announced the construction of dozens of seven homes in jerusalem last week just before he arrived. ohio gov. john kasich has signed into a law that includes some of the harshest anti-abortion members -- measures in the country. t would essentially defund family planning clinics. withose not to reject any a line item veto. pro-choice advocates say that three abortion clinics will
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likely be forced to close. thousands are expected to return to the texas state capitol today as lawmakers revive an anti- abortion member reported last week. texas governor rick perry has called a second legislative session after state senator wendy davis and a people's filibuster blocking a vote to close locations. she vowed to continue the fight today. in the capital last week were people who have grown weary of our politicians try to boost their own political careers on the backs of women by bullying them, and others, in order to promote the agendas that helped them personally. these are battle it -- matters of personal liberty. in texas, we hold dear to intrusions' against our personal liberty.
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we will fight as we begin the session again on monday. >> more than 5000 people have signed up for a "stand with beas women"demonstration to held on the capitol steps. on friday, the law was put on hold pending a final ruling in a lawsuit brought by planned parenthood and the american civil liberties union. a similar law in mississippi was blocked earlier this year. those are the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> welcome to our listeners around the country and around the world. massive protests continued overnight across egypt calling for the resignation of president mohamed morsi.
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millions have turned out for the rallies that started early sunday morning in cairo's's tahrir square, where the crowds have been the largest since the 2011 revolution that ousted hosni mubarak. tens of thousands remain in tahrir square and outside the presidential palace, vowing to stay on till morsi steps down. >> i am a part of this revolution because this regime is worse than its predecessor. at least we did not have the problems that we have now with no water, electricity, fuel. it gets worse every day. he should let us choose somewhere else -- someone else. ofprotesters accused morsi providing basics for the people ever since he took power. they say that he is putting personal agenda before the interests of people.
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egyptian security forces say that eight people have been killed in clashes around headquarters since sunday. >> 16 deaths were reported across egypt on sunday. among those killed was andrew pochter.- he died from wounds after being stabbed in the chest. thousands of supporters of morsi demonstrated. the presidency and president are open to conducting a real and serious national dialogue with the various political parties. let me clarify a few things. freedom of expression and the right to protest peacefully our
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rights enshrined by the constitution, but backs of violence and killings are condemned and unjustified. >> we go now to cairo to sharif abdel kouddous. his most recent article for the nation magazine is "egyptians to morsi: 'we don't want you'." square where it is very noisy. welcome back. talk about what is happening and the significance of these protests across egypt over the weekend. me,s you can hear behind there are still thousands of protesters in tahrir square and the presidential palace. what happened yesterday was one of the largest protests, some are calling in the largest in egypt's history, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people taking to the streets,
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filling tahrir square, the presidential palace, and not just in cairo, but in alexandria, cities across the delta. a massive display of dissent that shows the revolutionary spirit in egypt is very much alive. ons came, as you mentioned, the first anniversary of the inauguration of mohamed morsi. he was elected one year ago with a 51% majority against a stalwart of the former regime. since then there has been growing polarization against the political class with the muslim brotherhood withdrawing more into itself and its supporters. they have even lost support among other groups. on the streets, the lives of ordinary egyptians have become much harder. the prices of staple goods have
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gone up. crime and vigilante violence have increased. there are electricity blackouts in the hot summer months every day. there are fuel shortages that are causing a tremendously long lines, causing stifling traffic around the country. what we saw yesterday was a coming together of egyptians from many different walks of life, from ordinary egyptians fed up with the difficulties of everyday life which have only worsened since the revolution began, to members of the political class opposed to the muslim brotherhood, and even members of the former regime, who took to the streets to oust the muslim brotherhood as well. it is a large display of dissent. the muslim brotherhood had its own rallies, as you mentioned, not far from the presidential palace.
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it was rather large, but compared to the turn that we saw yesterday of the anti-morsi protesters, it was quite small. the response from the presidency has been to largely ignore and it seems they want to try to weather the storm, saying dialogue is the only way forward. there have been many calls for dialogue in the past year, often rejected by the political opposition, who says the muslim brotherhood just want to talk and do not want to put any ideas into action. , the campaignaign that started the calls for protest, has given mohamed morsi until 5:00 tomorrow to respond and step down for early elections. if not, they will call for further protests, more civil
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disobedience, and possibly calling for a general strike. >> could you explain what the rebel movement is, where it started, and how it has grown so large? the campaign translates into in arabic. many of the grassroots protesters are connected with the campaign against hosni mubarak. they drafted a simply worded petition on paper against mohamed morsi that used colloquial and arabic, calling on people to sign their names and put their id number in, and say they want mohamed morsi to step down for early elections. gain traction.at people began to photocopy it and
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pass it around schools and government offices. in the first month, they collected 7 million signatures. the latest count a couple of days ago was 22 million signatures calling for morsi's at ousting. these numbers are not verifiable, but the numbers who want him out are very large. was manifest did yesterday in this massive turnout. tomorrows campaign will lead to to an increase in civil disobedience. they have called for the army to step in and take over force mohamed morsi out of office. we remember, the army came to power, beginning the transition, and they also
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called -- caused massacres in the streets, but despite that, large portions of the egyptian populous are calling for the army to step in. we saw military helicopters flying over the crowd, and when they did, the protesters would cheer and salute the officers inside. is another development. we are waiting to see what the response from the military will be. >> i want to play some comments of the april 6 youth movement. he spoke about the significance of the constitutional changes. moment that made us realize there was no hope was the constitution of declaration. this marked the beginning of division in society and then followed a string of violence
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and people started to feel the government was truly tyrannical and had no intention of relieving power. all the fears and doubts that people had which people brushed off and said, maybe it would happen, we realized, in fact, it was a reality. this constitution will need to pass any price. since last december, up until today, there has been no stability at all. even a path for resolving the division is no longer there. interview, president morsi said he would not resign despite protests, saying, if we changed someone in office -- you can comment on the movement
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and what the president said? he was referred to the constitutional declaration that morsi made that region last november, which sparked the uprising against his rule, in which he placed his decisions above the judiciary, where he could not be overturned by the courts. he used the power to force through a constitution that was very divisive and rejected by many members of the opposition. we also saw the first real clashes between the brotherhood and protesters which left 10 people dead. that really marked the beginning of this mass opposition and the increasing polarization in the country against mohamed morsi's rule. he said he would
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not step down and that sets a dangerous precedent. it is important to mention, what we're seeing in egypt is an increasing distress that -- with process.tion their lives have not improved in any way. the political class has removed more and more from the lives of ordinary egyptians, talking about things that do not relate to them, so we continue to see this tug of war between conventional politics and revolutionary politics. that is what we saw yesterday. we will have to see how it goes forward. it looks like mohamed morsi is hoping to weather the storm out. wherenth of ramadan, moslems fast during the day, beginning in one week. perhaps they are hoping to make it through until then.
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if they do not respond to this mass dissatisfaction, call for change, i can only imagine egypt will become increasingly unstable and un-governable. >> we are getting news that a number of ministers have resigned from the morsi government. haveys that five members decided to step down, including the legal and parliamentary affairs minister, and the minister of communication. a broadcast journalist says that they resigned in such consolidation with protesters. heard that news before that cabinet ministers may have resigned. this follows a path the resignation from the morsi government, including those t tn
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november, pointing to an increasing isolation of the muslim brotherhood and the freedom and justice parties as a political group which is increasingly alone, reaching out to other political groups. >> what have you heard is happening in the rest of the country? the latest news of the death toll in egypt, we understand, 16 people have died. among them, this american pochter andrew . he was stabbed in the chest. of course, other protesters who were killed. yes, 16 people have been killed. eight of them in front of the muslim brotherhood headquarters.
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started to throw rocks and molotov cocktails. people inside began firing with bird shot or live ammunition and killed eight people. there have been deaths across the country from by the clashes between protesters and the brotherhood. the police were nowhere to be seen yesterday. they had announced they would not side with any political group. notably, they left the protesters to attack the brotherhood and some police were anti-morsiide the groups. these tensions have been increasing over the past few weeks and people have died in these clashes. there were people who were stabbed in the chest on friday. it is unclear the circumstances surrounding his death. he was apparently stabbed while
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filming or photograph in the protests. many sites of the political spectrum in egypt. an american professor was stabbed in the neck outside of the u.s. embassy here, so there is an increasing anti-american sentiment from the muslim brotherhood and protesters. they see the u.s. as siding with the brotherhood and there is a lot of angry sentiment against u.s. ambassador patterson for calling on the opposition not to engage in massive scale protests but rather dialogue. we saw photos of her yesterday with her picture crosstown. increasing anger at the united states. finally, the u.s.
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administration, secretary of state john kerry, approved the $1.3 billion in foreign military assistance, and the annual aid that the u.s. gives to the military here, despite the conviction of 43 ngo workers who were sentenced to prison, including 15 americans, who were tried in absentia, except for one of them. he waived those concerns in congress and allowed military assistance to go forward. the letter that was leaked includes the reasons of stopping the attacks from gaza to israel, allowing u.s. warships through the suez canal, allowing u.s. military flights over egypt. the security and military concerns are trumping the concerns of democracy and human justice, which has been the u.s. policy for some time now towards
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egypt's. >> what role do you think pro- mubarak forces have been playing in these protests, and what about key opposition leaders like muhammed el barred by? >> he and other leading members of opposition parties have, in the past few months leading up to this, -- they do not really lead on the streets as much. they seem to be disconnected as a political group from the grievances of ordinary egyptians. these protests came from a grass-roots campaign. backedve supported and the protests, calling for civil
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theyedience campaigns, so have supported the protests wholeheartedly. with regards to members of the former regime, we have seen many members take advantage of this groundswell of opposition to the brotherhood, taking to the airwaves with a very polarizing language, accusing the brotherhood of all kinds of things, many of which are not true. colin openly for the military to step in and take hold of the transition. this is really a mishmash of people coming together. it remains to be seen whether this will go. many have been at the core of dissent.
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upset atn, they were these calls for stepping in, embracing members of the police alongside them. the same police and military who killed over 1000 protesters since the revolution began. it is a complicated situation. egypt is increasingly unstable right now. the decision is really in the hands of mohamed morsi to see how this goes forward. >> thank you for being with us, sharif abdel kouddous. , will link to his article "egyptians to morsi: 'we don't want you'." president obama arrives in tanzania. we will speak to two former special operations forces, talking about secret operations
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in northern africa. stay with us. ♪ [music break]
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>> "give back my heart" by hamza el din. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> never ending security threats. those were the final words the cluster certification stevens wrote in his diary. christopher stevens wrote in his diary. three other americans were killed in the attacks. a state department computer specialist and two former navy seals were also killed, working
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as contractors with the cia. in another entry in his diary, that he was a target. ambassador stevens was reportedly the first american envoy to be killed in more than two decades. many questions remain unanswered about what happened that night in benghazi. the attack was carried out by well-armed militants. republicans have accused the white house of protecting the consulate and covering up failures. an independent panel found --
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the panel vice chair mike mullen unveiled the report's conclusions. the attacks were security- related. in response to the loss of life, injuries, and damage to facilities, the responsibility lies with the terrorists who conducted the attacks. that does not mean there are no lesson to be learned. the security posture of the compound was inaccurate -- inadequate for the threat environment in benghazi, and in fact, grossly inadequate to take care of the attack that took place that night. >> three other officials were dismissed in the wake of the findings of security failures, but another issue has seldom been raised with regards to benghazi, blowback. according to a book written by this was blowback
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from certain missions from jsoc. according to the book, president obama's counterterrorism adviser and bill mcgreevey and were running unilateral operations in africa not cooperated with the pentagon and other governmental agencies. ambassador stevens was apparently never informed about these operations. "benghazi: the can be foundeport" on sofrep.com. jack murphy served as an airborne ranger and special forces sergeant in afghanistan. brandon webb, jack murphy,
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welcome to the show. in the right-wing media, there is a lot of discussion about the lack of security. clearly, there was a lack of security in benghazi, but what is not discussed is what led up to the attacks, the blowback. jack murphy, i want to start with you. >> there are a number of been trading factors that led to these attacks. when we talk about the blowback effect, we have to understand this is a group of people, this motion was not particularly fond of americans to begin with, many foreign fighters, international jihadists who were part of that attack. what has not been talked about in the media is that there were covert operation being run inside libya, targeting killings against motion members, al qaeda personnel, and securing weapons that had fallen into militia hands which we did not want them to have in the post-war libya
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which was destabilizing the transitional government. there were a series of operations over the summer, and even in that week of september leading up to the attack. >> u.s. government allies were also assassinated. as far as what anchor the libyans moving into september 11 of that year. >> there was allegedly a cia asset that was targeted and killed in the first week of september, killed by the united states special up terry personnel. >> a cia asset killed by them. >> allegedly. >> this has happened in afghanistan and iraq but i will not be able to prove if they were an asset, but you can only imagine what is going through the heads of militia members.
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they believe they are working with the americans, and then the americans killed one of their people. this was one of the events that led to special operations forces kicking up a hornet's nest, and that was a factor in the attacks. >> for those that do not know, jsoc, a joint special operations command, who did they fall under, who is responsible for what they do in these operations, who was aware of what was going on in libya at the time of this covert operations, who was not? >> it is interesting the number of executive findings that have come out since 9/11. today you have a situation in which the ambassador of the country not having knowledge of the operations, but also the chief of stations that the cia does not have knowledge of these operations. this also happened in 2004 in kenya, where a number of
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operators got popped going through customs. what do you mean by got popped? >> there was an expediter helping them through customs. for one reason or another, the entire team was compromised and the ambassador had to step in and basically give them the jail -- get out of jail free cards. all of these things have been happening for a while now. >> the role of john brennan? >> he had an interesting role in the wake of the benghazi attacks. he managed to become the counter-terrorism adviser for president obama, which put him in this interesting position. he had quite a bit of influence but he also fell under executive privilege. not the same legal status that theould have had as director of the cia, as he does now. free reinh, they had
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to run operations in northern africa are from that executive office. >> i want to turn to ambassador stevens' diary. he wrote about the transition of security taking place, commenting about how shaky security felt after the gaddafi regime fell. he wrote -- the final entry it is extremely chilling. stevens writes -- and brandon webb, i want to ask you what first most surprised you in ambassador stevens' diary, and the board that you did to reproduce the bits that you did under website.
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i'd think we were surprised to see -- we put to rest a lot of questions that we have previously. was ambassador stevens' aware of what was happening inside the country, with regard to with the cia, jsoc was doing? clearly, from the diary, he was not aware of what was happening. again, it put to rest a lot of speculation about what his final thoughts were in the last couple of days leading up to his death. you see the writing in his own words, putting to rest speculation, also showing that he was concerned about the security situation but also hopeful with the transitional government in libya. i just think it is a tragedy. think, libby is important, what we have tried to
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show in our work with and gauzy in the book that we wrote, we are looking at a decade of failed u.s. policy, and it does not have to do with the right wing or left wing. it is really across both administrations. elementshave different operating, whether in libya, syria, iraq, afghanistan, mali -- iraqu have both been to and afghanistan. >> yes, and you do not have them talking to each other, different sheets of music. cooperating with the cia and then jsoc it is assassinating the same assets. it is a messy situation. if our foreign policy was working in the world, we would have a much more stable world today. >> was this situation unprecedented, or is it often
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the case that u.s. security agencies operating abroad do not necessarily share information? >> it is the latter, and that is what we have tried to show. here is a clear example of what is going wrong with what we're doing in the world. believe in the special operations community in that you need certain tools to do with that people out there, but when you have no clear strategic objective, and look and what we have done in afghanistan. what have we really done in a decade? ask anyone on the street or at the white house what our ultimate objective was, and you will get a different answer. murphy, what about the role of general petraeus, who was taken down in a sex scandal? was that really why he was taken down?
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do not think so. there are many different aspects of what happened. he realized he was the perpetual outsider of the administration. he was getting ready to step down and become the president of princeton university. when this started to happen, when he started to make motions that he would leave the cia and the government insiders and others contrived a situation in which he was forced out of the administration in a way that was politically grit -- disgraceful that would knock him out of the political game for years to come. that is pretty much what happened. there are people on the seventh floor of the cia who already did not like petraeus because he would often throw his weight around. there were personnel which contrived a legal situation and instigated a legal situation
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with the fbi to find information which the people close to him already knew existed. everyone knew about paula broadwell, his mistress. that was no secret. they contrive this legal situation on the information they knew already existed. i have heard that there was a meeting between john clapper and general petraeus, where there were some pretty harsh words thrown out during the meeting, and that is what it was revealed to general petraeus that he would be stepping down because his affair would be exposed. >> we're going to return to this conversation with brandon webb and jack murphy. they are editors from sofrep.com and they have written a book, "benghazi: the definitive report." stay with us.
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♪ [music break]
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>> "i will remain" - dr. adel idris almsheeti. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. theguests for the rest of hour are jack murphy and brandon webb, editors of sofrep.com. they rode the e-book, "benghazi: the definitive report." jack murphy is an army special operations veteran, brandon seals.ained navy he was one of the friends of those who were killed alongside christopher stevens. tell us about your friend and what he was doing. i have run into a lot of people in the special operations glen was just a
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special dye that stood out from the first day that we reduced to each other. we went through the sniper program together as a pair, so we spent a lot of time together under a lot of stress going through the training and developed a close friendship. we have similar interests outside of the military, active outdoors with sailing, surfing, skiing. we have stayed in touch after he 2004, aof service in few years before i separated. we stayed in touch for quite aware of what he was doing, but not -- he would tell me that he would go to mexico or israel, or elsewhere, but he really kept to himself was happening on those deployments. , toit me hard personally
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know that my best friend was involved in this situation, and this is the type of store that we cover on sofrep.com. it was more meaningful for me to get to the bottom of this to explain to people -- jack and i presidentialthe spin during the elections and nobody was really getting the straight truth. we had a lot of people in our network, the cia and state department, who said that people need to understand what is happening. change needs to happen. hopefully, we have told that story. can you also explain more how it is that you did the research, who you spoke to? you mentioned some people from the cia and state department and from jsoc as well, to get
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information for the book? primarily ciawere and state department. jack can answer for himself. what makes us a little different, the work that we do from the.com, we come community, we have established relationships, people trust us. we also have cultural understanding and background to translate to the rest of the world. these are people that trust us. normally, a journalist will spend years to get a source at jsoc or the agency, whereas we can pick up the phone and call have a dozen people at either place and say, what is going on? in this case, people were reaching out to us. >> president obama is finishing up his african tour. we are not hearing about
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military operations, of course. we know that there are jsoc operations happening in many of these areas. could you talk about that? operationsrrorism have been in north africa for a while now. we are seeing operations across northern africa. they have been happening for over five years now. some of these have been under the auspices of other countries, like france, other allies, and they will continue into the foreseeable future. >> what do you hope the military and intelligence communities will learn from the revelations in your book? >> i think they will work to stop de-conflicting operations. different areas of operations begin to step on each other and that gets people killed. that is something that needs to
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be corrected. >> what about the role of private security contractors hired by the cia? away, its not going will be around. the cia will continue to utilize security contractors. been your view, what has the effect of that, the hiring of security contractors by the cia and military? >> it has the affect of outsourcing mechanisms of the cia would have done themselves. they require security detachments to go into certain areas. it is happening, i do not expect it to stop anytime soon. >> brandon webb, is there a difference in the bush administration and obama in the administration, in how they deal
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with special operations, and that your thoughts of special operations in a democratic society? >> it is unfortunate that we do not live in a world that is peaceful. i think, inherently, we would all like to live in that world. we live in a world where there are bad people. i think special operations has a vital role in fighting what is, a me, -- we are up against radical ideology. we can call it a war against terror, but it does not really boil down to that. froms obama shifted focus bush, or is it a continuance? >> i would say is continuing. if anything, he has been more effective using jsoc and special operations command. >> it has gained momentum under his administration. >> the point i want to make is,
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a key component that is missing is, what are we doing to prevent the spread of radicalism, embracing these different cultures? without the prevention, we are in
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